Jannaiy 25, 191) 
LAND & WATER 
II 
explained this escape with perfect candour. The long 
range torpedo has defeated the long range gun, and, ni 
poor light, decisive action can only be sought at a risk 
which is prohibitive. , 
Victory, or Subordination. 
Now war is primarily a matter of fighting, and enormous 
and indeed incalculable as arc the benefits we all deri^■e 
from such use of the sea as we can enforce, the day it 
was admitted that we are not to expect the navy to seek 
or to achieve a conclusive military victory over the 
enemy's sea forces, from that day, obviously, naval 
advice and naval plans must fall into a second place, 
when operations of war are considered in Council. The 
sea war falls into the same category, in relation to the 
main operations, as do questions of transport and com- 
missariat. Tire llect is no longer a primary weapon, 
although it discharges a vital role in the protection and 
the defence of our primary sources of supply. And unless 
it is a primary weapon, unless it has a primary military 
objective, we cannot expect those that speak for it to 
occupy that place in the ^^'ar Cabinet which in other 
circumstances would unquestionably be theirs. Whether 
this subordination of sea power is, in the essence of things, 
really inevitable ; whether even now it can be restored 
to what, on a priori reasoning, most of us would consider 
its proper place, are matters that can be discussed on a 
futm-c occasion. For the moment we must, it seems to 
me, recognise both the fact and the most obvious explana- 
tion of it. And having done so pass on to note certain 
consequences. 
The facts of the position are that we are not to expect 
a naval victor}? except in conditions that must be of the 
enemy's own choosing, and as he is most milikely to 
select those favourable to our wishes, we must face the 
situation that sea war has to be conducted withoiit the 
advantages that would accrue to us from sea 
victory. At the moment the greatest of all the benefits 
that the enemy reaps from his fleet being intact and 
intangible is his command of his harbour exits to the 
North Sea and to the Baltic. It is this command that 
enables him to put his submarines and his occasional 
raiders into the Atlantic. .And if we in turn are unable 
to dispute the command of these exits, the attack which 
submarines and raiders make on our sea communications 
imposes three secondary duties, one on the navy, the 
second upon such civil departments as have the control 
of our ship-building industry, the third on the Govern- 
ment as a whole. It is for the navy to mitigate as far as 
it can the submarine scourge, by direct attack upon the 
boats themselves, by arming the merchantmen, by 
patrolling trade routes, where such patrol is possible, by 
controlling the movements of ships so as to warn them 
from all areas proved to be infested. It is the Admiralty 
alone that can assist merchantmen by equipping them 
with the means' and instructing them in the arts of self- 
defence. And the importance of self-defence all ex- 
perience has showni to be overwhelming. There is no 
need for this to be linrited to equipping ships with 
gims and supplying them with trained crews — enormous 
as is this task. Something, at any rate, can be done in 
developing means to assist merchantmen to evade sub- 
marine attack, and instructing those very resourceful 
persons, the sea captains, as to the best methods of em- 
plo\ring them. 
Value of Armamsnt 
That much has been done in this direction seems 
to be borne out by the not unsatisfactory fact 
that, in the last two months, the ratio of British 
ships to the total number of ships destroyed by sub- 
marines and mines is far lower than it was in the first 
part of the renewed submarine campaign. And it is 
not to be doubted that the new Board and the new 
personnel in charge of this important branch of naval 
activity, are tackling these problems with the utmost 
vigour and resource. Nor again does it seem to me 
doubtful that, ul/iniakly, we shall restore the ascendancy 
of the attack on the submarines themselves that we 
enjoyed in the summer of 1915 and in the spring of last 
year. Since August undoubtedly this ascendancy has 
been lost. But in theory it obviously can be restored 
— intricate and formidable as the practicable obstacles 
to its restoration may now appear. And pending its 
restoration, which would can'y with it the \-irtual collapse 
of the whole campaign, we have to rely on mitigating our 
losses by bucli occasional successes as we can get against 
the submarines by replacing them by fresh ship-building. 
There are many indications that every effort is being 
made to replace our losses by new shipping as fast as 
the resources of our shipyards in material and labour 
will permit. Finally, we must trust, above all, in 
organised national economy in the consumption of the 
things that the ships bring us. If we are indeed, as the 
rhetoricians tell us, a beleaguered city, there should be 
no delay in putting the whole garrison, but particularly 
the useless mouths on half rations. . 
America's Notes 
A year ago one would ha\'e said that even if there 
were no other reason why the present dimensions of the 
submarine campaign must be unthinkable, the opposition 
of neutral powers to such a development would in- 
evitably suffice to stop it. With the brave words of the 
Lusiiania Notes still ringing in our cars it seemed utterly , 
unreasonable to suppose that America could tolerate 
any considerable prolongation of the interval before 
that outrage y\as disowned and atoned for, quite un- 
thinkable that fresh outrages of the same sort could 
tamely be submitted to. And the Sussex Note of April 
last seemed a final confirmation of these opinions. But 
American feelings about the war have been in a strange 
tangle in the interval. And the last stage of bewilder- 
ment seems to have been reached by Mr. Wilson's 
idealistic speech to the Senate on Monday last. When 
the December Note was published, Mr. Lansing 
hastened to explain that the motive behind it was Mr. 
Wilson's fear that unless the war soon ceased, the United 
States must inevitably be drawn into it. But this 
explanation had to be withdrawn even more hastily 
than it was made. Yet, strange to say, in the debate 
which arose in the Senate, when Mr. Wilson, through 
Senator Hitchcock, tried to persuade that august body 
to endorse his action, it was precisely this fear that carried 
the day against this endorsement being given. 
This fear and another ; What would happen to America's 
traditional aloofness from European entanglements if 
the President's Peace Note were endorsed by the Senate, 
as it stood ? For the Note, it will be remembered, not 
only asked the belligerents to state the terms on which 
they were willing to make peace, but went on to say that, 
once peace was made, America would be willing to join 
in seeing that it was never broken again. Add to 
this that it was published just when Germany was de- 
manding peace with threats, and it was easy enough to 
see why the Senate refused that unqualified support that 
the President was most anxious to obtain. The chief 
spokesmen of the opposition were the two Republican 
Senators, Cabot Lodge and Borah. The first took his 
stand on the fact that the Gennans had interpreted Dr, 
Wilson's intervention to be an action entirely favourable 
to themselves. " If this is so," said Senator Lodge, 
" however far this may be from the President's intention, 
here is reason enough why we should not endorse it." 
ThcWUics were fighting for the reign of law and justice, 
America must not side with those whose whole conduct 
is their negation. Senator Borah took a wider ground. 
The President's Note held out the prospect of America 
being prepared to maintain the rights of the smallest 
nation in Europe, by ever}- influence and ever resource 
at America's command. Was it really meant that the 
army and navy of the United States should be at the 
command of any European power for the protection of 
the smaller nations ? This was a large enough order. 
But clearly a still more startling departure from American 
tradition would easily be possible, ^^'hen once all the 
nations were leagued together for peace, suppose Argen- 
tina to quarrel with some European power and then tc 
refuse arbitration ? Were tlie United States to stand 
by, and not only \\-atch Europe make war on Argentina, 
but join in hostilities against a fellow American republic 
themselves ? It was really this argument that finished 
off the Hitchcock resolution, so that all the Senate 
ultimately committed itself to was to support the 
President in requesting the warring nations to state the 
terms of peace which they desired. There was thus no 
